


Secret

by ElwritesFanworks



Category: Shutter Island (2010)
Genre: 1950s, Alternate Reality, Closeted, Coercion, Doctor/Patient, Forbidden Love, Hallucinations, Insanity, M/M, Mental Coercion, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, Multiple Personalities, Power Imbalance, Sad, Sexual Coercion, Star-crossed, Vulnerability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-22
Updated: 2013-04-22
Packaged: 2017-12-09 05:21:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/770460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElwritesFanworks/pseuds/ElwritesFanworks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lester takes it as a personal failing, that he doesn't notice the signs before it's too late -before everything's gone too far.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Secret

**Author's Note:**

> Just a sad little fic. 
> 
> Lots of deliberate shifting around with names - I'm trying to blur the lines of reality and hallucination. I hope that comes across.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you like this. I haven't read the book, so this is to be taken as movieverse, but also as slight AU (they are still trying to find a way to save Andrew from himself, and are in the middle of trying various methods.)
> 
> Anyway. Yeah. Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. :) Cheers!

* * *

Lester Sheehan is woken in the middle of the night by an orderly and finds a small crowd of nurses and orderlies, waiting outside his bedroom

"It's Laeddis, Doctor. He's calling for you - he won't settle down and when we tried to sedate him, he tried to bite one of the staff. He says he needs to see you," one of the nurses says.

"Me or Chuck?"

"Chuck."

"Right."

Lester sighs, drawing a hand over his face and rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"Should we get Dr. Cawley?" another nurse asks, and Lester shakes his head.

"Let him sleep. Laeddis is my patient. I'll deal with him."

Andrew Laeddis is in a private room, with an orderly stationed, like a guard, outside at all times. It has walls and a door, instead of bars, in the hopes that it might trigger some kind of calm in him, or at least keep him from terrorizing other patients. It'll be like this until a decision is made about what to do with him. The board is pushing to have him lobotomized, but Lester and Cawley have been pushing back as hard as they can. Still, it's only a matter of time until the board gets its way, and Andrew's only hope is to be rehabilitated before that happens.

When Lester enters the room, Teddy Daniels is staring up at him from Laeddis's cot, looking a bit rumpled, but not upset. Lester knows better than to fully let his guard down - the patient's mood could change in an instant, after all - and tentatively approaches him.

"Hey, Boss."

"Hey, Chuck. Pull up a chair."

Teddy gestures vaguely around him and Lester takes a seat on the end of his bed.

"I shouldn't be here," Teddy says in a hushed voice and Lester feels his heart sinking, but then: "I have a problem."

That's new, from Teddy. Lester tries to keep his interest from showing on his face too much, but he can't help that his pulse is racing - a new conversation could mean a breakthrough, could mean there's hope.

"What do you mean, Teddy?" Lester asks cautiously and Teddy leans in close to him - so close that Lester can feel his breath on his face.

"I'm not supposed to be here, to be drinking... I... how did I get here?" Lester swallows, nervous - he has to make sure he says just the right thing or he could upset the applecart completely.

"I don't know, Boss."

"I've never been to this bar before... is it new?" Teddy's squinting and looks completely lost and Lester's mind is racing. He's still hallucinating, but now he's in a bar? It's not normal for him to leave his perpetual loop - they've been through the same conspiracy story for months now. What could make him change, suddenly, like that? Intrigued, Lester tries something.

"It's pretty late, Boss. I think it'll be closing time soon."

"I need to get going," Teddy mumbles.

"Can you help me up?"

"Sure thing, Boss."

Teddy starts to get out of bed and Lester puts his arm out to steady him, only to have Teddy cling to it tight, leaning against his body. Lester feels a blush creeping up his neck and hopes that Teddy doesn't see it.

"Where are we walking to, Teddy?"

"Not my apartment. Dolores'll be asleep by now."

Dolores... asleep. Alive. Oh God, he's regressing. He's regressing further back than he's ever been before. Lester feels sick and it's all he can do to keep his voice even when he speaks.  
  
"Where then?"

"Your place?"

"Okay, boss."

They walk around the room a few times and out the door into the hallway. The orderly standing outside raises an eyebrow but doesn't interrupt. Lester shuts the door behind them, opens it, and leads Teddy through it.

"Here we are," he says and Andrew leans on him more heavily.

"Help me to the couch?" he slurs and Lester nods, walking Andrew back to his bed, before getting up to shut the door. He returns to sit at the end of the mattress but Andrew pats the spot next to him on the narrow cot and he awkwardly reclines, too aware of how small the cot is, how it's not designed for two grown men to share.

"You must think I'm a real ass," Teddy says in a hushed voice. Lester shakes his head.

"I don't mean to drink so much, Chuck, I swear I don't. I know I shouldn't. I know I shouldn't when it makes Dolores so sad."

Teddy's eyes are glistening wet and all at once he's starting to sob. He may not have actually had any booze, but he thinks he did and he's acting accordingly, blubbering drunkenly and reaching out blindly for a shoulder to lean on. Lester lets himself be hugged and pulled close, lets Teddy lay his head on his shoulder and sob into his neck. Of their own accord, his arms slowly wind around his patient and he rocks him back and forth.

"Shh... boss, it's okay. It's all gonna be okay, I promise."

"You're a better friend than I deserve," Teddy mumbles, and Lester opens his mouth to protest but not a sound comes out because suddenly there is a pair of dry, cracked lips pressing against his own and a tongue licking along his teeth and then he's holding on tighter and kissing harder and Teddy's letting him and he - no Andrew, ANDREW - is kissing him, a man, his patient, and this has to stop right now!

It takes two tries for Lester to pull his mouth away from the fevered kisses and when he does, Teddy's face is so open, so needy, his mouth swollen and his eyes shining, and something in Lester's chest hurts real bad.

"Don't you want to?" 

Lester gulps and shakes his head.

"You... you like me, don't you Chuck?"

"Sure, but I'm - I'm not that way, boss."

"Me neither. But Dolores is always sad, and the house is so sad, and I'm lonely and you're always nice to me, Chuck. Always."

As if to underline his point, Teddy's lips return, kissing along Lester's jaw, making a shiver run through him.

"We can’t -" Lester begins only to force his mouth closed to keep back a moan as Teddy's lips ghost over his earlobe, making him shiver.

"Please," Teddy murmurs. "I need it. I need _you_."

The way his voice cracks when he says it, hoarse with emotion, is what tips the balance. Something breaks inside Lester and it's as if a dam has burst, and he's got his hands tangled in Teddy's hair, kissing him back, mumbling endearments against his skin, and Teddy, he's letting him, his mouth falling open in an 'o', his hands smoothing down over Lester's back and lower still.

"Chuck," Teddy moans and Lester shushes him.

"Gotta be quiet, Teddy. Don't wanna wake up my neighbors, okay?" _Don't wanna get caught. Lose my job. Lose you._

"Okay," Teddy whispers and reaches for Lester's belt.

"T-Teddy -"

"Please, Chuck, I want to see you."

This is so many kinds of wrong, but Lester's heart is pounding and he's never been harder in his life.

"...alright."

His shirt is the first article to go, and the rest of his clothes follow shortly. He feels scared and exposed like this - knows that he should feel that and more, since Teddy, Andrew, is dangerous, could break his bones and leave him for dead, and since this goes against everything he's supposed to stand for. The words consent and coercion weight heavily on his mind. Yet it doesn't feel as wrong as it should - not by a long shot. Somehow Lester trusts him, trusts a made-up marshal in the mind of a sick man, and it's been such a long time since anyone's looked at him like Teddy's looking at him now.

"Don't I get to see you, boss?" he asks softly and Teddy nods, fumbling his way out of his clothes. Once Teddy's naked, things seem less wrong, less dangerous. Two men, bare for one another... not partners, not doctor and patient. Just friends. Just people.

Teddy's hand comes to rest on Lester's hip, his thumb smoothing over the skin there, placated and quiet. Lester's torn between wanting to shut his eyes, shut out the standard issue bed and blankets and the dingy walls, and to stare into that earnest face, free from so much of its characteristic tension.

He wants it to feel like it does for Teddy, wants, for a brief moment, to be nothing but a figment of Laeddis's imagination, so that he can be whatever Andrew needs him to be. Then Teddy's rough palm is holding him, cradling his cock like it's the most valuable thing in the world, and all Lester wants is to hold Teddy's too, to touch him back, to kiss. And he does.

It doesn't last long. Neither man really has the lifestyle that develops great stamina. Lester knows that Teddy touches himself sometimes - he walked in on it once and the image is still with him - but he is usually too exhausted to afford himself the same pleasure after his shifts. Besides, dealing with the criminally insane all day doesn't leave you in the right mood.

Or it shouldn't. And it doesn't, except when it's Teddy, Teddy's face, his voice, his lips pursed around the end of a cigarette, his anger, his pain, his beauty. Lester has it all memorized, has since the first time the board threatened to take Laeddis and strip him of his selves, to cut into his beautiful, broken brain and change him. Lester wants him changed, happy, normal. Wants him to have never been sick in the first place. But then, he knows, he'd be gone - still a marshal, still a regular guy, and they probably wouldn't have ever met, and selfishly, he wants to keep him here, where he's safe, where he can keep an eye on him.

"Chuck, I'm almost -" and then Teddy's coming all over Lester's hand and the sight alone is enough to set the psychiatrist off too, and he's just clinging to the other man murmuring to him. "Attaboy, Teddy. Shh, that's right. Good. Good. Come on. Easy. Love you so much." And once the words are out he can't take them back.

Teddy looks at him, and he looks at Teddy, terrified that he's pushed everything too far.

"You do, huh?"

Well, the cat's out of the bag. He's already doomed himself. Lying won't change anything, won't save his soul.

"Yeah." Teddy squints at him.

"I'm married."

"I know."

"Okay, then. That's okay."

Teddy pats his arm awkwardly, with his come-covered hand, making Lester wince.

"What?"

"I won't tell anyone. It'll be our secret. But you can't... tell anyone, either. Okay, Chuck?"

Lester feels dizzy and he's in way over his head but Teddy's still looking at him like he's some kind of hero and he can't give it all up yet, even though he should.

"Okay, Teddy. Our secret." Lester takes it as a personal failing, that he doesn't notice the signs before it's too late -before everything's gone too far. But here he is, nonetheless, in love with a man who doesn’t exist, and existing for a man who can’t love him, can’t even recognize him. He’s doomed to crash, and he knows it, but he can’t put on the breaks.

In his arms, Teddy Daniels closes his eyes and begins to snore. In his arms, Andrew Laeddis is sleeping.

Chuck Aule retrieves a handkerchief and cleans his partner up.


End file.
